Business and Personal Secrets for Avoiding Relationship Landmines

By Frank Zaccari

Martha Beck wrote "How we do anything is the way we do everything." Try as we may it is impossible to separate our personal life from our professional life. If we are having problems in one area, problems will occur in the other. How we handle and manage any situation, challenge or experience in our life is probably how we handle all of them. La

• Language: English
• Publisher: WeBe Books
• Release date: Dec 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781955668125

Book preview

Introduction

WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK?

This book is for everyone who has ever struggled or failed in a relationship. I guess that includes most people. In my last book, Business Secrets for Walking on Water, I wrote that success isn’t working harder or smarter. It is not what you know that will determine success or failure; it’s about what you don’t know. While the book was directed more toward people leading organizations, I received many questions about how can I find success at the highest level professionally without destroying personal lives? Similar principles are applied in these books.

The secret to walking on water is about knowing where the rocks are. Too many relationships sink because we don’t know where the rocks are, and we step on the landmines that derail our personal and business relationships. This guide will help prepare you to step on the rocks and not the hidden landmines you can’t see and don’t know exist.

WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER:

Relationships are hard. They take far more work and effort than most believe, and many people are willing to make. Landmines are lurking at every turn. What are they? Where are they? When did they arrive? Is there a roadmap so we can avoid them? We all want the fairy tale ending, the happily-ever-after story, the dream relationship, right? The first step is finding that special someone with whom you are willing, and they are ready to make some type of commitment. This process is more daunting than we may expect. It is commonly referred to as Dating-Hell.

Hell is not usually associated with something good. We have all heard the dating pep talks from well-meaning friends and family; You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find that prince or princess. And, There is a lot of fish in the sea; the right one will come along when you least expect it.

Now, if you are lucky enough to make your way through the frogs and the fish and actually find someone, you start down the Happily-Ever-After Trail. Then life happens.

Student loan payments, rent, food, and bills begin to pile up. Maybe you started grad school that will accumulate more debt. Perhaps the relationship evolved into marriage and children; priorities changed again. Hopefully, you were able to turn a job into a career that pays the bills, allows you to put away some money, buy a car, a house, raise a family, take an occasional vacation, and buy the toys that make you happy. Your career becomes more and more demanding. More hours, more time away, less time present, and more stress and strain on the relationship. If you are not careful, life becomes a grind where you exist rather than live. Then the doubts set in. Am I really happy? Is this what I signed up for?

WHY DID I WRITE THIS BOOK?

The common denominator in all my relationships that did not end well is me. I am not a celebrity or sports hero or a national or even local politician or business tycoon. I am not a Ph.D. or counselor or psychologist, or self-help guru. I am an average American man who gets up every day and does the best he can to love, nurture, protect and support my family. I try to do whatever it takes. Sometimes that means working long hours or two jobs or being on the road. Most times, the strain from my professional life led to the downfall of my personal relationships.

After spending over thirty years as a successful corporate executive, a business owner with a poor track record with personal relationships, I decided to share some of my successes and failures. My goal is to help others not only survive but to thrive personally.

I have failed at more than one marriage and many relationships. Being a child of the 50’s the rules were; work very hard, put in long hours, travel, do whatever it takes to be successful, get promoted, and save some money. I was told that is how to build a happy life. Follow the rules, and your professional success would be enough to make your personal relationship(s) work. Guess again! The more success I had professionally, the less success I had in my relationships and marriages.

I found that you can work like a dog, and the odds are that your business will not survive. Maybe you will survive but at the price of your personal and family life. Many of us justify spending our life fighting and clawing to get to the top of our mountain for our family. Then if you have the good fortune to reach the top of your mountain, you turn around and find the important things, and people may not be there. Let me give you a small glimpse into my early experiences.

I grew up in a small, hard-luck steel town outside of Buffalo, NY. Times were difficult financially. Seasonal layoffs were common, and getting ahead was limited. In my teens, I feared this was the life I was doomed to live. I was painfully shy around women and did not date very much in high school. Why? I saw too many older guys from my neighborhood marry their high school sweethearts at eighteen years old. They were in love or wanted more sex or felt a life working in a steel mill was good enough. They had children early, and I heard many of them say, Well, I made my decision, so I guess I am stuck here. I promised myself I would not get involved with anything or anyone that would keep me stuck. At that young age, I saw women more as a trap to be avoided at all costs.

Baseball was my oasis. I was pretty good and thought it might be my way out. In my senior year, I realized that my dream of playing shortstop for the Yankees would not happen. I spent two years in a community college trying to discover my new dream. I was accepted at Cornell, the highlight of my life at that point, but then I was number ten in the military lottery. So, my choices were to get drafted into the Army for two years with a high probability of going to Vietnam, leave the country, or enlist for four years with a guaranteed job in the Air Force. I enlisted in the Air Force and was a military medic at the end of the Vietnam war. While I was not a combat medic, I did see many things a 19-year-old shouldn’t see. I witnessed people whose lives were forever altered through no fault of their own. I promised myself that I would not become a victim. I had a very short marriage while in the service. It never had a chance. I was too young, far too immature. My military experience led me to become a take no prisoners Type A person.

I finished college after my discharge and entered the high-tech world, where I worked for two Fortune 50 companies before becoming a small/medium high-tech CEO for over 25 years. I had another very short marriage in my early twenties. This time my career was first and foremost for both of us, and we immediately realized the marriage was a mistake. We were married and divorced within one year. For the next six to seven years, there were several first dates. People told me I gave off the not interested vibe. I made sure I was on the road frequently, making it virtually impossible for any type of relationship to flourish.

I was at a senior management level when I finally felt ready to be married. Like most people, I planned for us to stay together forever. We were very happy, at least I thought we were. We had two daughters who were my everything. Professionally things were good. On the surface, we looked like the poster family for success. I thought I had it all; a successful business, marriage, and family.

When I became a CEO for companies that were failing, sixteen-plus-hour days was the norm. I always made time with and for my daughters, but I didn’t have the energy for my wife. Big mistake!

I now realize that as a CEO, the biggest challenge I faced was finding someone, without an agenda, to talk to; to bounce ideas off; to discuss financial and personnel issues; to discuss how they addressed some of the challenges I faced. I didn’t see it as a real issue, so I didn’t look very hard.

I believed I could handle it all myself. I was extremely good at what I did; I trusted my judgment and was competitive enough to win the deal… usually. I felt I didn’t need an adviser or a sounding board, which put all the burden on me. Well, that burden began as a small ripple, and over time it grew to a tidal wave, which negatively impacted every area of my life.

My temperament changed to the point where even I didn’t like myself. I drank too much, was angry, frustrated, and depressed. I felt like I was on a treadmill that kept going faster and faster. No matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t keep up. I lost patience with my staff; dealing with my customers and my business became an annoyance. It was not a pleasant time in my life.

My marriage of twenty-four years ended. I didn’t talk or share my struggles with my wife. She got tired of living with someone who wasn’t present, and she found someone else. And the timing couldn’t have been worse.

My wife left the family two weeks before Thanksgiving and just forty-five days after my mother died. I had custody of my two young daughters. Everything changed.

Unable to stay in the high-tech field due to the extensive travel: I bought an insurance agency to be a full-time Dad. Moving from a proactive hi-tech world to the reactive world of insurance for a Type A person is like dying and going to hell. After all my success, my hours at work, traveling the world, all I had to show for it was a shattered life.

The insurance business was a means to an end. The firm did well, and I settled into being a full-time dad. When my youngest daughter graduated from Arizona State University, I sold my company and decided to dedicate myself to helping people and their organizations thrive personally and professionally.

Because of that one decision, I hosted a weekly internet radio show called Life-Altering Events. The show has since moved to ROKU TV. In the first year on radio, we had over 200,000 listeners in forty-two countries. I had the opportunity to meet, talk, and work with some truly amazing people. I have teamed with the likes of Jay Abraham, Dennis Pitocco, Mark O’Brien, Tom Crea, Mark Balzer, Gaby Ory, Julio Alvarado, Jim McLaughlin, Kimberly Crowe, Sam Altawil, Jackie Simmons, Gina Mazza, Eileen Bild, Teresa Velardi, and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos to name a few. They share my passion for making a positive contribution, especially for those striving for success in their professional and personal life. My goal became to help executives and organizations avoid the professional and personal land mines that I didn’t.

What are some of the lurking landmines?

Keep reading.

CHAPTER 1

Making the Same Mistakes

My choices have developed in the neural pathways in my brain over time. It is not solely that I am a ‘dumbass.’ Think about it. How often do we see people continuously drawn to the same situation or the same type of personality?

Frank Zaccari, CEO/ Author/Speaker

After spending years and thousands of dollars with counselors, I finally started to come to grips with the challenges of my youth and the military. While these experiences shaped much of how I thought and acted, I still had control over my decisions. Unfortunately, those decisions involving personal relationships were not good. I was the oldest of five children born within eight years. My role was to be the protector and defender of my siblings. Any time someone picked on them, I would aggressively confront the other person(s). Many times, it turned into a physical altercation. (Back then, fights did not include guns or knives). Win or lose, the message was clear, do not mess with my family.

My youngest sister tells a story of when she was in sixth or seventh grade, and I was umpiring the bases at a local baseball game. She was sitting on the bleachers at the right-field line when a young man came and sat beside her. I glanced over between innings, and not recognizing the guy, I walked toward them to get a better look. At the end of the next inning, I looked back, and the young man was gone. After the game, my sister was not pleased and told me, I like that guy, and when you gave him that look, that glare you have where you look right through people, he asked, ‘Is that your brother Frank?’ I said, Yes, and then he said, ‘Let him know I was just talking,’ and he left. You scare people away just by looking at them.

One counselor told me this protector model is often called the White Knight Syndrome. I asked her to explain. She said, White Knight Syndrome is a term used to describe someone who feels compelled to ‘rescue’ people in intimate relationships, often at the expense of their own needs. You feel compelled to rush to save the perceived damsel in distress. Then she said, "You keep repeating the same process. You are attracted and drawn to the same type of woman. You are actively drawn to women who seem helpless and in need of support (such as those with a history of untreated trauma or self-harm) and treat them as extensions of yourself, criticizing and controlling them under the guise of ‘just trying to help.’ Now at first, they may have needed and/or welcomed your actions, but eventually, they or you outgrew the situation, and the relationship fails. In short, Frank, your picker is broken."

Oh my God! My picker is broken, and I have White Knight Syndrome. But that is the classic definition of insanity; doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

As I left the session, I went back through my relationship history from high school to the military to college, pre-marriage, marriages, and post-divorce relationships. I saw the counselor was right. I kept repeating the same toxic situations. In researching this book, I found an article in www.bigthink.com by Robby Berman 17 May 2016: Why am I repeating the same mistakes?

It has to do with neural pathways that get created as we do things. When we do something right, a neural pathway is created. Unfortunately, a pathway is also created when we do something wrong. So, we keep making the same mistakes because we slip by default back into existing neural pathways.

OK, so it has to do with the wiring. My choices have developed in my brain. It is not solely that I am a dumbass. Think about it. How often do we see people continuously drawn to the same situation or same type of personality, such as

The bad boy

The party girl

Someone like their mother or father

An alcoholic or other type of addict

An abuser; mentally, physically, emotionally

Someone in the same line of business (this is very pervasive in the military)

Why? It is not simply because it is something we know or something we perceive that makes us comfortable. It is also from the neural pathways we have built over the years. Does this mean we will never break this toxic and destructive cycle? No! Our brains can re-learn, be re-wired, so to speak. How? Once you know what you want to work on, consider these points. Alice Boyes Ph.D. writes in Psychology Today, September 21, 2018

Vowing never to make a particular mistake again is the wrong approach. You will make the same mistake again. However, you can change your focus to developing practical strategies that will help you make less severe mistakes, less often.

Develop strategies for prevention. You need to take a problem-solving approach that’s tailored to your exact circumstances, one that’s doable rather than aspirational. Your strategy should feel like a reflection of yourself and be things you’ll want to do, rather than seeming unappealing.

Put aside time and mental energy. The reality of life is that we don’t always have the time or mental space available to address self-sabotaging habits mindfully. That’s normal, but you probably won’t do anything to turn around your patterns until you have that energy available. What times during your day/week do you have enough cognitive mental energy available for self-strategizing?

Develop strategies for harm minimization. Harm minimization is about having a safety net like a therapist, a very trusted friend, a sponsor, etc.

Understand your Seemingly Irrelevant Decisions. Seemingly Irrelevant Decisions are decisions that set you down the path towards a self-regulation failure. It is a form of self-sabotage.

Stepping Stones to avoid the same mistakes

What toxic choices do you keep making over and over in your life?

Do you know someone, or are you suffering from the White Knight Syndrome? How has that been working for you?

What steps have you taken to try and reprogram your Neural Pathways? Did you seek professional help? Why? or Why Not?

What seemingly irrelevant decisions have been a driver in self-sabotaging a relationship?

This idea of brain reprogramming is so interesting. As I continued to research the topic, I